


i'll be your knotted rope

by uptownskunk



Series: 100 Fandoms Challenge [22]
Category: Town of Salem (Video Game)
Genre: 100 Fandoms Challenge, 5+1 Things, Canon-Typical Violence, Double Drabble Sequence, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-20
Updated: 2019-03-20
Packaged: 2019-11-26 01:50:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,200
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18174260
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/uptownskunk/pseuds/uptownskunk
Summary: Five people who visited the Veteran at night and lived to walk away, plus one who didn't.





	i'll be your knotted rope

**Author's Note:**

> 022/100 for the 100 Fandoms Challenge. Written for prompt #51 – cull.
> 
> Fic title from the Thea Gilmore song “This Town”.
> 
> Fic dedicated to all the lives needlessly lost by visiting obvious vets (except for the ones on the opposing team, obviously – thanks, vets).

**_One / Escort_ **

 

The guy is bleary eyed when he opens the door and he looks at her more like he’s looking _through_ her, like he’s not quite sure if she’s actually there, and maybe she’d be a little more worried about that – about his state of mind – if her head wasn’t already filled with worry over the silver pistol dangling loosely in his hand.

She eyes it, eyes his finger hovering around but not quite _on_ the trigger, and forces her eyes to drag back up to his.

_Ignore the gun_ , she thinks. _Should’ve visited the redhead two doors over but it’s too late now._

“Heya, stranger,” she says with a smile. “Thought you might need some company tonight. You looked a little lonely at the town meeting, you know?”

He blinks at her, silent, and she thinks the awkwardness might actually kill her even if the man in front of her doesn’t plan on shooting her instead but a second later, he’s backing away and holding the door wider – an invitation, if she’s ever saw one.

She takes it, of course.

She _does_ have a job to do.

“Is that coffee I smell?” she asks, and steps right in.

 

**_Two / Werewolf_ **

 

The moon is round and bright, full to bursting open, and he can feel the pull of it as keenly as if he’s up there with it high in the sky floating in space with it instead of tethered down here on Earth.

He’s going to kill someone tonight, he just knows it.

He knows it because that’s how he’s planned it, knows it because he’s _leaving_ his house tonight instead of staying at home like a scared little puppy praying that no one visits him and leaves him forced to drag what’s left of their mangled body out of his home in the wee hours of the morning like he had to do with that poor investigator a few nights before.

Tonight, it’s going to be different. He’s going to be proactive. This’ll be a test run, of sorts, the guy he’s visiting the most quiet one in the town, friendless and unknown, and if this goes well and no one suspects him in the morning, then he’ll move on to _better_ sport.

It’s hard to get the window pried open with his claws in the way, but it _does_ open eventually and then –

Then, he eats.

 

**_Three / Sheriff_ **

 

The coffee the man offers him tastes like stale, filthy sludge and the cup it’s in is chipped in so many places around the rim that the Sheriff has to be careful about where he puts his mouth so it doesn’t cut his lip wide open, but a cup of joe is a cup of joe and a lawman working the graveyard shift can’t be choosy about the swill he has to drink to stay awake.

He just gulps it down in heavy swallows and tries not to let it touch his tongue. He’s been a cop for awhile now, so it’s a skill he’s got perfected.

“I can tell you’re a good man,” the Sheriff says with a weary sigh. “Stay in my profession long enough in this town and survive it and you can just tell who’s good and who isn’t, and I can tell that you’re good people.”

The man across the table offers a crooked smile that looks completely out of place on his weary face.

“I’m sure you’re a good man, too,” he says. “At least, you haven’t killed me yet.”

The Sheriff laughs without humor. “Rare enough thing in this town, eh?”

 

**_Four / Framer_ **

 

He’s the perfect target.

Flashy clothes, same name as a fucking genocidal maniac – seriously, what were the guy’s parents _thinking_ with that – and loudmouthing it at the town meeting earlier?

It’s all mishmash of bad factors coming together to form the perfect storm of suspicion swirling over the guy’s head with the word GUILTY spelled out in fluffy black clouds and flashing like a dying neon sign with lightning to boot.

She’d offered up his name as the one to start the framejob on first thing that night and the boss had jumped on it immediately, commending her for her quick thinking, and off she’d went to make him proud.

Getting into the house is easy because the front door is unlocked – ha! sucker! – and she can already hear his snoring coming from the bedroom once she’s in. She’s mindful of not waking him, walking on tip-toes, as she makes a quick go of her work.

A hit list shoved between the pages of a magazine here.

A little vial of blood spattered there.

A gun shoved between the cushions of the couch.

It takes ten minutes to get it all done and then she’s out, mission accomplished.

 

**_Five / Doctor_ **

 

It’s probably stupid for a doctor to get attached to a patient and even more stupid _still_ to get attached to a patient they’ve known for all of a day, but there’s just something about _this_ one that’s different.

He tries to rationalize it with the fact that they’d flirted a bit at the town meeting earlier, that he’d been attracted to this scruffy, tired eyed man with his quick jokes and wry smile before he’d ever come out here tonight, but the Doctor can’t deny that even here and now as he stands watching over his sleeping charge, that the spark of attraction in his gut is still there.

He shouldn’t feel this way.

He has a responsibility towards this man – no, not only him but to the whole _town_ – and he can’t let any feelings distract him from that, can’t let himself get attached to a stranger when he might very well have to sacrifice that attachment for the sake of the town.

But still…

These are trying times, _dangerous_ times, and a doctor walks a tighter rope than most.

Doesn’t he deserve to make the most out of that? To live whatever life is left?

 

**_Plus One / Mafioso_ **

 

It’s a bad fucking idea to be going where he’s going. Every step he takes feels like it’s being made with one leg tied to a headstone that’s already got his name carved in it in beautiful, flowing script.

He’d told the boss, _begged_ him, to pick another target – send him to kill anyone _but_ the one guy screaming to the town at large that he’s a vet with a gun collection the NRA would cream their pants over, literally _daring_ the mob to come after him that night.

“I’ll shoot you dead, you pillion! Just try me!” the nutcase had yelled and sure, maybe he was bluffing, but what idiot wanted to take that risk?

Not _him_ , but his idiot Godfather had other ideas and _theirs_ isn’t a business where employees are allowed to offer feedback except in the form of giant FUCK YOUs written in wills like the one stuck in his jacket pocket that he’s sure someone will be pulling off his corpse come morning.

He’s proven right soon enough, barely able to knock on the guy’s door before the blast hits him.

Shot in the face.

Lovely.

What a wonderful way to go.


End file.
